Agra summit not a failure, says Jaswant

Huma Siddiqui

Agra, July 17: India on Tuesday asserted that the summit talks between India and Pakistan were not a failure and said that the confidence building measures (CBMs) that were announced prior to President Musharraf’s visit would be fully implemented.

Addressing a press conference in Agra, the external affairs minister Jaswant Singh said: ‘‘To say that everything has collapsed in Indo-Pak relations is wrong. I am not treating it as the end of the exercise. The caravan of peace will continue its journey and on some auspicious day, there will be another meeting between Prime minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee and Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf.’’

Stating that India recognises Kashmir as an “issue” and that it was committed to addressing it, he said “conceptual differences” persisted. “We do not recognise it as the only issue or the core issue”.

On Pakistan’s insistence that unless Kashmir was resolved there could be no improvement in bilateral relations, the minister said “we don’t believe that bilateral relations can be held hostage by any single issue”. Giving details about the summit, he said negotiations for an agreed text of a document were “seriously pursued” when India did not shy away from any issue.

He said ‘‘India is convinced that narrow, segmented or unifocal approaches will not work’’.